What's up with the State Legislature?

Recently, it seems like every law the Massachusetts State Legislature passes restricts our liberty. Here are some examples:

• In 2006, it became illegal to ride in a car without a seat belt. Officers now have the power to stop a car just because they see someone not wearing a seat belt, and issue a fine to the "offender."
• Since 2006, all Massachusetts residents are required to have health insurance. This is a blatant violation of people's rights to choose how they want to spend their own money. I guess it didn't occur to the Legislature that in a capitalist country, the economy should be based on people choosing to buy the products and services that they want, not being forced to buy what the government thinks they should.
• In June of 2007, the Legislature killed a measure to allow the people to vote on whether or not to ban gay marriage. There goes the people's right to democracy.
• On September 1, 2007, getting a license became a lot harder for teenage drivers. Thankfully, the legislature didn't raise the driving age to 17 1/2, as some people wanted, but they increased training requirements from 6 to 12 hours behind the wheel at drivers' education and from 12 to 40 hours driving with a parent or other adult.
• A law went into effect on July 10, 2008, that requires all children under age 8 to sit in booster seats or car seats while in the car. Personally, I started sitting in the front seat of the car without a child seat of any kind when I was 4 or 5, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Forcing a 7-year-old to sit in a booster seat is ridiculous. The government has no right to tell people how they have to sit in their own cars.
• On July 31, 2008, Governor Deval Patrick signed the repeal of the 1913 law that prevents out-of-state gay couples from marrying in Massachusetts. This spreads gay marriage to the entire country and violates the rights of citizens from other states to set their own marriage laws.
• According to Exhibit A, the Senate and House passed a law that allows mothers to breastfeed their babies wherever and whenever they want. This means that it is now illegal for stores, restaurants, and other businesses to ask breastfeeding women to leave or ask them to stop. So much for the rights of business owners to set their own policies. So much for the rights of people who are uncomfortable around breastfeeding.
• In June, the state Senate passed a law that would ban kids under 14 from riding all-terrain vehicles, and require everyone who rides an ATV to wear a helmet. The House is in the process of discussing the bill.

Perhaps these laws have made the state safer, but collectively they have made Massachusetts a lot less free. The State Legislature seems to be slowly but surely shrinking the amount of things people are allowed to do, and that is not good. Governments simply do not have the right to ban things that aren't immoral and don't hurt other people.

Ronald Reagan once said, "I don't believe in a government that protects us from ourselves." I couldn't agree with him more.

The Durham-Humphrey Amendment

Have you ever heard of the Durham-Humphrey Amendment? Until a week or two ago, I hadn't.

It seems to be simply a fact of life that you need a prescription to get certain medications. If you need medicine, you go to a doctor, and the doctor writes a prescription, which gives you permission to get the medicine. If you get the medicine without a prescription, it's illegal. One day, I wondered exactly when this became the case. Certainly there weren't such things as prescriptions in Washington and Jefferson's time.

I went to the FDA's website, looked at their timeline of FDA history, and found the answer: October 26, 1951. On this date, Congress passed the Durham-Humphrey Amendment to the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. The Amendment divided drugs into two categories: over the counter and prescription, and gave the FDA the power to put drugs in one category or the other. Prescription drugs are considered unsafe, and therefore illegal, to use without direct medical supervision, and it is illegal to give them out to anyone who does not have a prescription from a doctor. Senator and former vice president Hubert Humphrey co-sponsored the Amendment.

I believe that the Durham-Humphrey Amendment is immoral and unconstitutional. First, it is unconstitutional because nowhere in the Constitution is the federal government given the power to decide what medications are safe, control what medications people use, or force people to go to a doctor in order to get medications.

Second, the Durham-Humphrey Amendment is immoral because it treats people as if they are unable to take care of themselves. By telling people that they are incapable of making their own decisions about medicines, the government is treating its citizens like parents treat their children. This is demeaning, disrespectful, and completely unacceptable in a supposedly free country like America.

Choosing to take medicine without seeing a doctor is not immoral, and it does not hurt anyone (unless you count the poor, starving doctors, who are deprived of revenue). Therefore, it shouldn't be illegal. Of course, there will always be some people who make decisions that they later regret, but people have the right to make their own choices about their lives. The fact that some people make bad decisions does not change this. The government has no right to force people to gain a doctor's approval for their actions, thereby depriving them of their independence and often their dignity.

Doctors have far too much power in today's society, and the government is the main reason why. The feds need to give people more credit by recognizing that we have the right to take care of ourselves. The American people need their liberty back, and the Durham-Humphrey Amendment needs to be repealed.

Bush's veto sustained

Wow! My third post in one day!

Well, I think it deserves mentioning that Congress failed to overturn President Bush's veto of the SCHIP bill! This is a victory for everyone who opposes socialized medicine and supports freedom from excessive government intervention. Congrats to all the representatives who stuck to their guns and voted against this bill.

Go to Reuters if you would like to read the full story.

Brownback dropping out?

According to various news sources, Sam Brownback is planning to drop out of the 2008 presidential race. This is fairly disappointing, as he was among my favorite candidates. However, there are still Ron Paul, Tom Tancredo, and Duncan Hunter! I'm not sure who my favorite candidate is, but it's definitely one of those three. I'm leaning toward Paul right now, but only by a small margin.

Over at the New York Times, I saw this nifty article, a comparison of the candidates and their views on health insurance (which seems to be one of my favorite topics recently). I liked Paul and Hunter the best!

Bush vetoes SCHIP expansion

As expected, President Bush vetoed a bill that would pour large amounts of government money into providing health insurance for kids who have too much money to qualify for Medicaid and other government-sponsored programs. I completely agree with the president's veto. The only thing I would have done differently was publicize the decision more - Bush vetoed the bill behind closed doors without inviting any media representatives or encouraging fanfare. I wish Bush has showed more pride in his decision, as he did when he vetoed the stem cell research bill. At the moment, the Senate has enough votes to override the president's veto, but the House does not. I hope it stays that way and that socialized medicine in this country is not expanded.

My health care idea

Hillary Clinton has just unveiled her plan for health care in America, and I don't agree with it at all. According to Hillary's plan, all Americans would be required to have health insurance, and all large businesses would be required to provide insurance. Small businesses would have tax incentives to provide insurance, but would not be required to. Naturally, the government would provide subsidies to pay for poor people's insurance, so the federal budget would be increased by $110 billion!

First of all, no one should ever be required to have any kind of insurance. The government has no right to tell people what they must spend their money on. If any state mandates health insurance or auto insurance, the federal government has an obligation to step in and overturn the state's law.

Second of all, I don't think employers should provide insurance; I think insurance companies should provide insurance. People should decide if they want health insurance or not, and then, if they choose to, buy it from the company that sells it. Health insurance should be bought and sold like any other commodity, not automatically deducted from people's paychecks.

Finally, I oppose Hillary's plan because it would cause the federal government to spend more money, and the feds already spend vastly more money than they should.

Here is my plan for health care: Health care and health insurance should be completely optional. To make health care affordable, the government should set maximum prices that doctors and health insurance companies can charge for their services. I think anything significantly more than $20 a month for health insurance is unreasonable. Different medical procedures would have different maximum costs, probably each under $100. If you want health care or insurance and think the price is a good deal, then you can buy it. If you can't pay or don't think it's worth the money, then don't get it. If the insurance companies can't make money without charging ridiculously high fees, then they should go out of business and people can just pay for the health care they choose to get.

My plan is the only one I've heard of that is just. The government has no right to force people to get insurance, or to take people's money and give it to poorer people. Health insurance companies and doctors have no right to charge exorbitant prices. My plan solves these three problems and would create a truly fair system for America.

Why Bush should veto SCHIP expansion

Taxes are so ridiculously high that the government needs to be doing as much as possible to cut its expenses. My family pays about 45% of our income in taxes, and we get very little back in return. We don't get government subsidies for health care, food, college tuition, or anything else. Congress is about to send President Bush a bill to expand government funding for SCHIP, a program that provides free health insurance to children who have too much money for Medicaid. Bush says he plans to veto the bill, and I agree with him. Congress wants to pour billions more dollars into SCHIP. In my opinion, this is one of the last things America needs. It is not the government's job to take people's money and distribute it to other people that the government has decided need it more.

How, then, would poor children pay for health care they need? The answer is simple. The government needs to set a limit on how much health care and health insurance can cost. For example, health insurance can cost a maximum of $50 per month. Or setting a broken bone cannot cost more than $30. Then people could choose whether they wanted health insurance or not. Want health insurance? Fine. Don't want health insurance? That's fine too, you can just pay individually for each procedure you get.

Clinton's evil plan

Yes, I said I was going to write about immigration, but I just saw this story on the CNN site and it infuriates me! Former President Clinton believes that in some developing countries, all people should be forcibly tested for AIDS! Yes, I know that this policy would help to save lives, but that does not prevent it from being morally repugnant. The consequences of a policy do not impace how moral the policy is. All that matters is that the policy Clinton supports involves forcing innocent people to submit to medical procedures that involve needles piercing their skin! As a belomophobe (someone with an extreme, uncontrollable fear of needles) I understand that for some people, blood tests are unbearably agonizing, both physically and psychologically, and it is impossible to enjoy life knowing that a doctor will inevitably pierce your skin with a needle at some point in the future. No matter how many lives the forced testing saves, it will completely ruin the lives of countries' entire populations.

Not to mention the fact that AIDS is spread through sexual contact, and there is the possibility (actually the certainty) that some people in the developing countries are celibate and intend to remain so! Clinton's despicable proposition implies that everyone will be having sex, which is ludicrous. I believe that sexuality itself is immoral, but even if I did not, it would still be obvious to me that people have an inalienable right to be celibate and therefore not to be tested for sexually transmitted diseases. If even one person who does not have AIDS or who wants to be celibate is tested (which is certain to happen, since only about 5% of the population in these countries have AIDS), the entire policy will be proven useless. The policy that Clinton supports will not just violate, but utterly smash the civil rights of all the citizens of the countries he targets. By dismissing our existence, Clinton has affronted all individuals who believe in celibacy. His proposal reflects a spirit of collectivism and a disregard for individual rights. Clinton's view makes him, in my opinion, one of the worst presidents in history.